How easy and simple it is to activate anti-cancer and antiviral immunity. People are still afraid of the coronavirus. And I hope that this article will be helpful to you.
NK Cells and Immunity
Are an evolutionarily very old component of our immune system. NK cells provide antiviral and anti-cancer protection. Let’s briefly talk about how it all works.
humans have two components of the immune system:
- innate
- acquired.
The innate system allows us to reject foreign bodies and foreign ones. It also allows us not to get sick with certain diseases common among animals, plants, and other species.
Why is that? The fact is that for a specific time, we have developed resistance to this disease. Thanks to the properties of the immune system to recognize your own or someone else’s. It is the main feature of recognizing one’s own and not one’s lies at the heart of the functioning of NK cells.
Lymphocytes
NK Cells are lymphocytes in the amount of about 10% of all lymphocytes in the blood constantly wander through organs and tissues. With the blood flow, they are always in contact with all the cells, with all the organs, with the walls of blood vessels. And they constantly survey the cells of our body, whether you are your own or someone else’s. If you are your own, you must show them your ID. such a certificate for our cells is the histocompatibility system.
Major Histocompatibility Complex 1. It is the number one histocompatibility complex that signals to NK cells that we are our own.
The process of NK cells
The NK-cell approaches, for example, to the wall of the vessel and asks him to show me his passport. And the passport is an MHC1 cell that presents this passport to the NK cell, and the NK cell calms down.
And in those cells where there is a viral invasion or where a tumor begins to develop. These cells lose the ability to present documents that prove their identity. In other words, this major histocompatibility complex number one disappears on the surface.
The NK cell approaches such an affected cell, does not find a site that justifies the presence of this cell in the body, and begins to attack it. And it attacks it with special substances, these are proteins, perforin, and these are the enzymes present in its granules. And these proteins and enzymes do not destroy the cell, which is important. But they introduce it in a state of program death, which name is apoptosis.
This state of programmed death leads to the fact that the virus does not disappear from the affected cells. But it seems to cease to exist together with the affected cell. If the NK cell lysed (that is, dissolved the affected cell), this could lead to the fact that the virus jumped out of this affected cell and could continue to settle in other healthy cells and tissues. But NK cells are designed in such a way that they bury this affected cell along with the virus.
Tumor Cells
The same situation occurs with some tumor cells. Tumor cells lose the main histocompatibility complex on their surface. And NK-cells approaching them to understand that they are facing someone else’s cell and destroy it.
That is, this is how our primary link of the immune system works. Our first aid or innate immunity. In addition, NK cells, upon contact with the affected cells, begin to send a signal to the immune system. They produce interferon-gamma and alpha TNF. Such substances activate other components of the immune system later. And only then the immune system is included in the setup. Begins to produce:
- more specific antibodies
- produce cytotoxic lymphocytes that will store the infection’s memory and respond more subtly and clearly to the subsequent encounter with infectious agents.
NK Cells and Covid-19
The activity of NK cells prevents the spread of herpes viruses, for example. In people who have a high activity of NK cells, in principle, there are no rashes of the herpes virus during primary infection. Here’s how 90% of people have it, for example. And with covid-19, the SarsCov-2 virus that causes this disease.
It was observed that the sarsCov-2 virus is more aggressive in those people who have a reduced number of NK cells. And people who suffer from covid-19 in a more complex form have been reported to have low NK cell counts. And when these people recover from covid-19, the number of NK cells is also restored.
NK cells in our body are a very useful thing. And it would be perfect for recovering quickly if their level dropped.
How to Restore NK Cells for Better Immunity?
At the moment, such reliable chemotherapeutic or pharmacological drugs or dietary supplements that could raise the level of NK cells simply do not exist.
There is a weak attempt at the so-called AHCC. It is a product that is made from mushrooms of Japanese origin. And it supposedly increases the level of NK cells.
A very simple way to activate NK cells, simple enough to make you laugh, it’s just walking in the woods.
We all know that there are many phytoncides in the air in the forests. Phytoncides are substances that are produced by foliage, especially coniferous trees.
and these phytoncides have various beneficial effects on our body:
- lowering the level of cortisol
- normalizing the nervous work of the nervous system
- lowering blood pressure
Research of Immunity
In 2007, a survey was conducted in Japan, which showed that being in the forest significantly increases the activity and number of NK cells.
Also, this study was repeated in 2018 in Taiwan.
The first study involved men who arrived in the forest for three days.
These men were properly taken for blood tests before they entered the forest. They were normal office workers, healthy, 35 to 55 years old. And they took their blood on the second and third days of their stay in the forest.
And they found that the number of NK cells compared with the initial one increased, and the activity of NK cells increased by as much as 50%.
Scientists from Taiwan obtained similar results. There, 90 forest industry workers and 110 office workers were investigated. And the same situation. The number of NK cells their activity increased in those who spend much time in the forest.
And it turned out that even one day being in the forest carries positive consequences for the immune system. which are stored for seven days.
It is assumed that phytoncides exert such an activating effect on NK cells contained in the forest air.
And there were also studies that the highest concentration of phytoncides is found in coniferous forests and the warm season.
The conclusion that being in the forest or in the park at least once a week, preferably more than two hours to spend there, can significantly increase the number of cells necessary for immunity. But if you manage to do this every day or live in the forest, you are simply lucky.
Here is a simple and effective way to increase the activity of your immunity. not only against viruses but also against cancer.
Sources: Forest bathing enhances human natural killer activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins Health effects of a forest environment on natural killer cells in humans: an observational pilot study